If we use the Ukraine war as a template for the next major war that the US faces (possibly against China) -- does the United States have the industrial capability to produce the tens to hundreds of millions of drones necessary to win?
Like can it produce the propellers, the frames, the motors, the batteries, the ICs to make a FPV drone that blows up in an enemy soldiers face?
Can that supply chain be made in the US and how long can will it take to make?
Is this a priority for the United States? Why or why not?
Well the US has a ton of larger process size fabs. There's at least 100 fabs of varying sizes and processes in the US as well as internal supply chain for materials, testing, and assembly. (Where do you think most of the semiconductors containing classified designs are manufactured)
Most are much smaller and more specialised/less automated so they don't have the same kind of production but there are a lot of fabs in the US and a lot of fab knowledge. Of all the countries, the US is one of the few that could probably survive a semiconductor industry collapse outside.
And many of those semiconductors in cheap FPV drones likely are actually fabbed in the US or could easily be fabbed in the US by Intel, Infineon, Texas Instruments, pSemi, NXP, Bosch, Renesas, Micron, onsemi, Analog Devices, Honeywell, Polar, GlobalFoundaries, Microchip, or Samsung, just to name a few non-military facing companies with significant fab operations in the US.
If we use the Ukraine war as a template for the next major war that the US faces (possibly against China) -- does the United States have the industrial capability to produce the tens to hundreds of millions of drones necessary to win?
Like can it produce the propellers, the frames, the motors, the batteries, the ICs to make a FPV drone that blows up in an enemy soldiers face?
Can that supply chain be made in the US and how long can will it take to make?
Is this a priority for the United States? Why or why not?